Record-breaking Arctic ice melt – causes and implications
Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA satelite pictures and a BBC News item on the latest data from the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) showed that the Arctic sea ice has thawed to record levels this year. It is well known that the Arctic ice thaws annually during the summer months, when the temperature is…
Belo Horizonte – the first Latin America city to implement TRACE energy saving tool
Belo Horizonte image by Vera Barbosa. The Tool for Rapid Assessment of City Energy (TRACE), developed by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), has already been implemented in various cities around the world, but Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, was the first city in Latin America to implement the World…
Will the Sweet Potato be giving Usain Bolt a run for his money at the next Olympics?
First blog from our guest blogger, Hollie Gibson, who is studying Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK. As the London Olympics came to an end on the 12th of August 2012, plans for the next Olympics which will be held in Rio, 2016 are already in full swing. This time however it…
Are the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games the most sustainable ever?
Photo taken by Vera Barbosa A report has just been published to update the 2005 BioRegional, WWF and London 2012 framework report on producing the most sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games ever. The 2005 report, Towards a One Planet Olympics, became part of London’s bid and then part of London’s promise to the world. Towards…
Plant problems? No problem…
At CABI we’re always trying to deliver useful, relevant and timely scientific research, as well as help you find that needle of information in the haystack of data. Today we’re releasing another resource which does that – and it’s free! Today CABI announce the launch of a new online resource with information for all involved…
Bioenergy – opportunities and challenges of sustainable production
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Brazil was the only country known to have successfully produced and used liquid biofuels in the form of sugarcane ethanol. Now hardly any country can be found that is not producing or considering biofuels production. The International Energy Agency predicts bioenergy will contribute up to 21% of the global…
Climate change: what is Europe doing to adapt?
I heard in the BBC weather forecast for the UK this morning that some regions of the UK will receive over 40 mm of rain today, which is the amount we would normally get for the whole of the month of July. Here in the UK, we had the wettest April on record this year,…
Neglected tropical diseases: the future is multidisciplinary and ‘one health’
A new society has been born – the International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases. The society’s reason for existence is to provide a space where people from different disciplines can meet and develop new ways to control neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). I went to their inaugural conference. The talks were many and varied as was…